TY - BOOK
T1 - Three perspectives to global projects
T2 - Managing risks in multicultural project networks
AU - Aaltonen, Kirsi
AU - Murtonen, Mervi
AU - Tukiainen, Sampo
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - Global projects represent an extremely challenging form
of project work, especially in the sense that despite the
best efforts for planning and prediction, the complexity
of the project network and the fact that the operations
usually take place on foreign soil with foreign partners
are likely to cause many unpredictable and unexpected
events and deviations from project plans, having a
significant impact on the project progress. The purpose
of this study is to identify and analyse interactions
between cultural processes, network connections and risk
management practices in global delivery projects. During
the research, data has been collected from 21 case
projects delivered to 17 countries world-wide. The
studied projects varied in size, the degree of success
and cultural diversity. The data consists of 92
interviews with the project managers and other project
specific key personnel from four project-based companies
as well as project documentation. The interviews have
been conducted both in Finland and in various project
host countries. The examination of the case projects is
implemented both as project specific and comparative case
studies. By the project specific historical studies, the
project trajectories and critical incidents have been
described as well as explanations for the project
specific outcomes in general have been sought for. In
addition, the comparative research designs have been
built according to the planned and emergent outcomes of
the projects as well as according to their cultural
diversity and institutional characteristics. By the
comparisons, novel ways to unravel the risks and
difficulties of the project management due to the
cultural differences have been sought for. The results of
this study inevitably present the significant impact of
the various project stakeholders and the emerging
cultural diversity on the project risk management
processes required for answering the specific needs and
challenges of global projects.
AB - Global projects represent an extremely challenging form
of project work, especially in the sense that despite the
best efforts for planning and prediction, the complexity
of the project network and the fact that the operations
usually take place on foreign soil with foreign partners
are likely to cause many unpredictable and unexpected
events and deviations from project plans, having a
significant impact on the project progress. The purpose
of this study is to identify and analyse interactions
between cultural processes, network connections and risk
management practices in global delivery projects. During
the research, data has been collected from 21 case
projects delivered to 17 countries world-wide. The
studied projects varied in size, the degree of success
and cultural diversity. The data consists of 92
interviews with the project managers and other project
specific key personnel from four project-based companies
as well as project documentation. The interviews have
been conducted both in Finland and in various project
host countries. The examination of the case projects is
implemented both as project specific and comparative case
studies. By the project specific historical studies, the
project trajectories and critical incidents have been
described as well as explanations for the project
specific outcomes in general have been sought for. In
addition, the comparative research designs have been
built according to the planned and emergent outcomes of
the projects as well as according to their cultural
diversity and institutional characteristics. By the
comparisons, novel ways to unravel the risks and
difficulties of the project management due to the
cultural differences have been sought for. The results of
this study inevitably present the significant impact of
the various project stakeholders and the emerging
cultural diversity on the project risk management
processes required for answering the specific needs and
challenges of global projects.
KW - project management
KW - risk management
KW - stakeholder management
KW - cultural diversity
M3 - Report
T3 - VTT Tiedotteita - Research Notes
BT - Three perspectives to global projects
PB - VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland
CY - Espoo
ER -